Old Black Magic
by Morgane
Summary: 1980. Coming home one night after performing a task for the Dark Lord, Lucius finds Narcissa sleeping peacefully and reflects about the ties that bind him to his young wife.


Disclaimer: I neither own Harry Potter, nor "Old Black Magic" or that little extract from the Yeat´s poem "For Anne Gregory"  
  
I won't bore you with enumerating all the reasons for which I consider "Old Black Magic" THE song for everyone's favourite evil couple, but I'd like you to know that this is the very first songfic I have ever written. Please keep this in your minds when feeling the urge to flame me ^^   
  
OLD BLACK MAGIC  
  
~~~~  
  
Old black magic has me in its spell  
  
Old black magic that you weave so well  
  
Those icy fingers up and down my spine  
  
The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine  
  
~~~~  
  
One hour after midnight.  
  
The stars hung low over the distant horizon, a mere stroke of light between heaven and earth, and for one moment Lucius Malfoy´s icy grey eyes stared absent-mindedly at their familiar patterns, lingering on the brilliant punctures that seemed to separate this world from the next, before he quite abruptly tore his gaze away, a certain hardness settling on his features.  
  
Turning around to approach the impressive glamour of Malfoy Manor, he pressed his lips together in a firm line, irritated at this short display of sentimentality. There was nothing to get emotional over about the stars, after all, they were always the same; cold, flawless and indifferent to every horror their nightly eyes might be forced to observe. Just like himself.   
  
He vaguely remembered that it used to be different, though. Yes, the first times, when he, barely eighteen, had been sent out together with the rest of the Death Eaters to perform a task for the Dark Lord like tonight, the sight of their victims´ blood had shaken something vital in him, something that he hadn't even known to possess. It had been...irrational. He had well known what he had chosen when he had joined Voldemort's court, when the burning tip of His wand had been traced with horrible slowness over the tender flesh of his left forearm, he had known where it would lead him to. He just hadn't expected all this blood.  
  
Brushing the memory of his long-lost innocence aside, he finally entered the mansion, and without heed, he passed onward towards his chambers, his dark realm of nightmares and dreams.  
  
That was where he found her.  
  
~~~~  
  
Same old tingle that I feel inside  
  
And then that elevator starts its ride  
  
Down and down I go  
  
Round and round I go  
  
~~~~  
  
Narcissa.  
  
For one moment, the ever-present guards in his chilled eyes were stripped away, letting the emotions swim through them openly as he stared down his sleeping wife who laid peacefully in a nest of her own golden hair. Shortly, he allowed his gaze to linger on the pale perfection of her flawless young face, marvelling how fragile she looked in sleep, how unlike the cold ice-princess with the sharp tongue he shared his days with, before he tore his gaze away from her again.  
  
Removing his black robe and folding it neatly on a chair at his side, he wistfully recalled their first encounter at the Lestranges´ wedding, his first impression of this effortlessly graceful girl with her innocent hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. In midst of all her admirers and followers, Lucius had felt a pulling away in her, a desire to leave and to go off alone that had instantly caught his interest. Unlike all other persons at the party, Bellatrix´s little sister had refused to make any commitment to the people around her, had refused to pretend allegiance to anybody, no matter how powerful or how high in Voldemort´s grace. She had looked as though she needed nobody but herself.  
  
Lucius had never been a man that was easy to surprise, but this girl, eight years his junior, and the cold, self-sufficient strength in her eyes had managed to arose curiosity in him.  
  
This was almost two years ago.   
  
Finally reclining next to her, impressing the mattress with the weight of his body in the process and bringing both their bodies back towards the ground where their reality laid trenched in the blood of others, a wistful expression shortly settled on his face as his eyes landed on her again, on her smooth belly that gradually began to show signs of its sweet burden, of the child it was bearing.   
  
Family.  
  
Still, after all this time, the word tasted strange on his tongue.   
  
~~~~  
  
Like a leaf caught in the tide  
  
I should stay away but what can I do  
  
I hear your name, and I'm a flame  
  
Flame, burning desire that only your kiss  
  
Put out the fire  
  
~~~~  
  
Reaching out a hand to grab a fistful of her radiant golden hair, he silently admired the way it gleamed in the shadow of their bedroom as though it possessed a light of its own. Right from the beginning on, her hair had fascinated him to a point, reminding him of the ancient poems about cursed princesses in old towers his mother used to read to him what seemed a lifetime ago. "Never shall a young man thrown into despair by those great honey-coloured ramparts at your ear love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair." Who had written those verses, Yeats? If he wouldn't have known the impossibility of this, he could have sworn that the poet must have known his wife.  
  
It wasn't her beauty, though, which had bounded him to her, even if he had to admit that he took delight in the way, men - and even women - turned around to stare at her wherever they went, that he enjoyed the nights when he would feel the slender body pressed beneath him on white sheets of soft satin. Yes, he appreciated her looks, but he knew well that beauty, even one as exclusive as hers, could be bought at every corner. No, what really fascinated him about his wife, what bounded him to her in spite of his will, was her mind.   
  
A small twinge, almost like a smile, flickered over his pale lips, spreading a brief silver twinkle to his chilled eyes of ice, when he stared down at her again. She might look like Innocence herself in sleep, but next to himself Narcissa was the single most intelligent human being he had ever known. Cool, relentless and logical, a brilliantly trained student in every kind of magic, there was nothing in any realm she could not grasp. Like himself, Narcissa saw the larger scheme of things. Like himself, she was on every count a winner.  
  
A sardonic smirk graced his flawless features for an instant. They equalled each other in every reign.   
  
~~~~~  
  
For you're the lover that I've waited for  
  
You're the mate that fate had me created for  
  
And every time your lips meet mine  
  
Baby down and down I go, round and round I go  
  
In a spin, loving the spin that I'm in  
  
Under that old black magic called love  
  
~~~~~  
  
But in spite of the obvious similarities of their characters, the likeliness of their goals and desires, there was some mysterious core to her that he lacked, some fatal flaw that often drove her to flee their majestic home in order to ride through the Malfoy´s large grounds for hours, exhausting herself and the horse near the fallout or to sit whole days in a corner of her room and to hiss curses at anybody stupid enough to approach her.  
  
  
  
He didn't like this, didn't even come near to understand the source of this behaviour, but he accepted it because these difficulties were part of what Narcissa was, because they somehow reflected her good qualities as well.  
  
And then there were also always rare moments, when he would be next to her and feel like there was nothing else in the world but him and her and the child in her belly, when he felt that this, this bondage between them, was the only pure thing in his stained life. For these moments, he would let her have her will and wouldn't interfere with these long hours of self-chosen loneliness she obviously needed from time to time. For these rare moments, he never regretted his decision to marry her.  
  
~~~~  
  
I should stay away but what can I do  
  
I hear your name and I'm a flame  
  
Flame, burning desire that only your kiss  
  
Put out the fire  
  
~~~~  
  
It was this emotion that bounded him to her, no matter how much he tried to forsake himself of such desires, and sometimes it still worried him. She wasn't supposed to mean anything to him, wasn't supposed to be anything but a tool for his own gains, a vessel for the heir he owed the Malfoy name, but he felt that in spite of the short time of their marriage, he already couldn't imagine himself a life without her.   
  
Better not let her know about this, though. She was too much like himself, too much like everything he harboured in his own dark soul, not to use this knowledge, not to make him a slave, a tool within the grinding gears of her own desires. Nineteen years old, but still she had an ultimate plan for her destiny, a shape for which to meld men's lives. He remembered to have been exactly the same this age.   
  
~~~~  
  
For you're the lover I have waited for  
  
You're the mate that fate had me created for  
  
And every time your lips meet mine  
  
Baby, down and down I go  
  
round and round I go  
  
In a spin, loving the spin I'm in  
  
Under the old black magic called love  
  
~~~~  
  
Finally releasing her hair, he moved again, taking his body with him as he situated himself on the bed more comfortable and, subconsciously reacting to the warmth of another body, she snuggled closer to him, her marked arm reaching out to drape itself over his chest while her face came to rest against the hollow of his neck. "Lucius", she murmured his name in her sleep, her voice a silky purr of content. The child inside her belly moved.  
  
Something very akin to a smile slowly crept over Lucius´s delicate features as he placed his own cold hand over hers.  
  
His wife.  
  
His child.  
  
His family.  
  
They had their own strengths and weaknesses, but together, they were flawless.   
  
Perhaps that one day, he might perhaps be able to tell her so.  
  
~~~~  
  
Ah in a spin, loving the spin I'm in  
  
Under the old black magic called love  
  
In a spin, loving the spin I'm in  
  
Under the old black magic called love  
  
Under the old black magic called love  
  
~~~~ 


End file.
